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Cinematical Seven: Great Tributes to Radio

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Jan 13th 2011 10:00PM
Filed under: Cinematical


You may have heard this before, but before there was HDTV, there was just regular TV, kind of pixilated. Before there was cable and satellite TV, there was just regular broadcast TV, received -- for free -- via an antenna. Before there were remote controls, people had to get up to change the channels (all 13 of them). Before there was color, there was black-and-white. And before all that, there was no picture at all... just sound. And they called it radio.

People used to listen to all kinds of things on the radio: talk shows, music shows, comedy shows, adventure shows. Sometimes actors stepped up to the mike to re-create famous movies for radio. Sometimes comic books, comic strips and pulp novels were adapted into radio. Some of the most famous radio shows were 'Little Orphan Annie,' 'The Cisco Kid,' 'Fibber McGee and Molly,' 'Dick Tracy,' 'Flash Gordon,' 'The Lone Ranger,' 'The Shadow,' 'War of the Worlds,' 'You Bet Your Life' and 'The Green Hornet.' That last was actually created for the radio, and only later evolved into a comic book, TV show, and the new Michel Gondry film that opens this week.
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Time After Time: Movies from 1927

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Jan 10th 2011 8:15PM
Filed under: Columns, Cinematical


We're back in our time machine with the broken dial, and this time we land in 1927.

What Was the Story?

Calvin Coolidge was president, and enjoyed a good strong decade, doing a better job than his predecessor, and presiding over the "Roaring Twenties," before the Great Depression hit in 1929. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and the Yankees won the World Series. The first transatlantic telephone call was made, and the world population was a measly 2 billion. Popular music of that year included tunes by Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy," Hoagy Carmichael's "Star Dust," and Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues." Louis Armstrong's legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands were also recording during this time. People were reading things like Agatha Christie's 'The Big Four,' Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse,' Upton Sinclair's 'Oil!' and B. Traven's 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.'

Why Was 1927 Significant?

By 1927, the studio system -- with the "big five" (Warner Bros., Paramount, RKO, MGM and Fox) -- was soundly in place. It was the height of the silent era. The art of film had made leaps and bounds since the previous decade, and some of the great works of art in cinema history -- Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis,' F.W. Murnau's 'Sunrise,' Abel Gance's 'Napoleon,' Buster Keaton's 'The General' -- were being produced. Comedy was king, with Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Harry Langdon making some of the year's most notable films (Charlie Chaplin was between films that year). Movie buffs mostly flocked to see their favorite stars, and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks became the first such stars to place their prints in the cement in front of Grauman's Theater.
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Actors We Miss: James Stewart

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Dec 24th 2010 7:32PM
Filed under: Cinematical


It's Christmastime, and many families and/or movie buffs will be sitting down to watch 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946), starring James Stewart. Or perhaps they will watch the even better, but lesser known Christmas movie 'The Shop Around the Corner' (1940), also starring Stewart. He's a Christmas kind of guy, heartwarming and charming. Members of my generation may remember seeing him on television in the late 1980s hawking his poetry book, with their almost ludicrously sweet little poems. Almost anyone these days can do an imitation of him with that indelible, homey, aw-shucks voice.

A case could be made for James, a.k.a. "Jimmy," Stewart (1908-1997) as the greatest male screen actor of the 20th century, although I'd also consider Cary Grant for that honor. What's that, you say? What about more accomplished actors like Laurence Olivier or Marlon Brando? Jimmy Stewart was always "just" Jimmy Stewart, wasn't he? Anyone who reads my stuff knows about my personal theory about this. For me, it's far more valuable for an actor to bring his personality to a role, to create a consistent screen persona, than it is for an actor to merely "disappear" into one role after another. If an actor totally disappears into a role, what is left of his personality to make him unique?
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15 Great Movies, Free of Charge and Absolutely Worth Watching!

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Dec 24th 2010 3:00PM
Filed under: Cinematical, Free Movies Online


I'm not sure how many movie fans know this, but in addition to all those movies you can download illegally, and the movies you can pay to download from iTunes, you can also stream and download hundreds of movies absolutely free, with no fear or legal consequences. It's a little complicated as to how this happened, but these movies are considered to be in the "public domain," which basically means that their copyright has expired and was never renewed. This is very common for early movies made before 1923, and a little less common for movies after that, and nearly nonexistent for recent movies; copyrights received today extend -- apparently -- for 95 years.

Public domain is always in flux. Famously, Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946) was once in the public domain, which led to its being shown on television hundreds of times during the holiday season, on various different channels. Eventually someone discovered that the film's musical score was still under copyright, and now it has been scaled back to a once-a-year event showing.
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Interview: Sofia Coppola and Stephen Dorff on Visiting 'Somewhere'

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Dec 22nd 2010 8:30PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Cinematical


With just four feature films, 'The Virgin Suicides' (2000), 'Lost in Translation' (2003), 'Marie Antoinette' (2006) and the new 'Somewhere,' Sofia Coppola has shown herself to be one of the world's most delicate and uniquely heartfelt filmmakers. She rarely gets credit for this, however, and instead receives criticism for her class and status, for having been born into "Hollywood royalty." It doesn't help that she tends to make movies about privileged characters, but Ms. Coppola also manages to make these characters universal and emotionally truthful, showing them to be just as sad, lost, lonely, and confused as the rest of us. Her new movie has started off well, winning the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

'Somewhere' tells the story of a successful Hollywood actor, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), who has just finished a movie and spends most of his days living in a room at the Chateau Marmont, drinking, smoking, having sex, and just generally trying to stave off boredom and despair. Things change when his 11 year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) is dropped off for a visit of uncertain legnth; he begins, through this simple human connection, to understand what his life could be about. Coppola tells this story in a dreamy, non-linear way with very little explanation or exposition, which will be aggravating to many American viewers. But those that clue into its sensitive rhythms will find something to treasure.
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Cinematical Seven: The Most Boring Movie Titles of 2010

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Dec 17th 2010 10:02PM
Filed under: Features, Cinematical


James L. Brooks' 'How Do You Know' opens this week, and it may be hard to tell that title from any other movie currently playing, or indeed, to remember it at all. Coming up with a good title is an art in itself, and some filmmakers just don't have the touch. If you think of it, 'How Do You Know' could actually be the title of just about any movie ever made. 'The Godfather'? Yep. 'Jaws'? Certainly. There are any number of boring movie titles, and Brooks in particular is responsible for two more: 'As Good as It Gets,' and 'I'll Do Anything.' Or how about Nancy Myers' 'Something's Gotta Give' and 'It's Complicated'? Then we have the random application of song titles to movies, such as 'Can't Hardly Wait' and 'Just Like Heaven.' I could have spent hours coming up with a list of hundreds, so I thought I would limit my search just to 2010. As it is, I came up with about 25 sleep-inducing examples, and these are the bottom seven.

1. 'Remember Me'
This plea from a heavy Rob Pattinson tearjerker was practically a guarantee that we would not remember it.
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Time After Time: Movies from 1940

By Jeffrey M. Anderson (Subscribe to Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts), Posted Dec 17th 2010 3:20PM
Filed under: Features, Cinematical


We're back in our time machine with the broken dial, and this time we land in 1940.

What Was the Story?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was at the end of his second term and would be elected to a third term by the end of the year. WWII was raging around the world, but the United States had not yet officially entered (it would take the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor to be the catalyst). One can only imagine what the mood must have been like; probably many discussions of the time revolved around whether or not the U.S. should get involved. In other, far less important news, the first McDonald's restaurant opened that year, in San Bernardino, California.

Popular music of that year included Woody Guthrie ("This Land Is Your Land") and Glenn Miller ("In the Mood"). People were reading Ernest Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' The economy was still not in great shape -- it would be improved by the entry in to the war the following year -- but people still went to the movies to forget their troubles. And what a good year it was. Some people say that 1939 was the pinnacle of Hollywood entertainment, but my money is on 1940.
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